“Your name or your person, which is dearer? (Daodeching, XLIV)”
People hailing from Chinese-speaking countries, and foreigners entering these countries, have the unique opportunity to decide what they want to be called, raising interesting questions on how they choose their new identity.
If you interact with people from the greater Sinosphere, you will soon realize many could be addressed by at least two names: a Chinese one, and a Western one (in the vast majority, English). Conversely, most people moving to a Chinese-speaking country will adopt a Chinese name somewhere along the line. It can even be compulsory for some paperwork.
Practical and creative
At first, the idea that Sinophones would use English names may seem inappropriate, until you notice a lot of people casually use their adopted foreign names even when speaking in their native language. They are not just a mere convenience but a full part of their identity. This is an experience which is, in our times, pretty unique and mostly confined to Chinese speakers and their associates: having a say in how you will be called, having a chance to bear a name that does more than name you — it also describes you.
So, how does that work?
As early as 2009, author Huan Hsu, a Chinese-American, was puzzled by the phenomenon. In a very interesting article for Slate, he also mentioned that, as a migrant’s son, he (and his parents) would have found it insulting to give up on his roots and choose an English name. But when he went to work in Shanghai, “My company almost didn’t process my paperwork because I left the box for ‘English name’ blank,” he recalls. He noticed the need for an English name, then mostly rampant in big Chinese cities rather than the countryside, was a way to “serve” the “glory” of China by contributing to its globalized economic success. He also noted how “native Chinese often find it more efficient to type, write, or sign documents in English. Using English names also creates a more egalitarian atmosphere. Most forms of address in China reinforce pecking orders.”
Not everybody agrees: writing for Quartz, reporter Zheping Huang wrote that “I was William, then Peter, then James, and then William again — until I decided to just go by Ping, the last character of my given name.” He said a female friend kept her Chinese name as “recognition that she is a Chinese citizen, not an ‘ABC’ (American-born Chinese).” This is the opposite of Huan Hsu who, precisely, did not feel the need to use an English name because he is an ABC.
“Using English names also creates a more egalitarian atmosphere. Most forms of address in China reinforce pecking orders”
Others tried to find historical reasons. Writing for Sixth Tone, Wu Hayiun says, “these interpretations ignore China’s own rich naming tradition” and goes on to give an interesting explanation of how China used to have a complex method for naming people, with different names being used in different contexts. This makes for a fascinating read, with lots of historical information, but it’s not entirely convincing. First, as Wu Hayiun herself wrote, these fluid and complex naming methods had already fallen into disuse in China by the mid-1900s, whereas the habit of using an English name only emerged in the late 20th century when globalization gained momentum. In between these two, the Cultural Revolution thoroughly erased traditional ways: it is doubtful that young Chinese people moving upwards in a modern era and embracing the global economy were much concerned by how their great-grandparents chose their names.
Besides, other cultures also employ nicknames, pseudonyms, and the like. Even the United States in particular is well-known for its fondness for nicknames: Edward Kennedy Ellington became “Duke,” Antoine Dominique Domino became “Fats,” Izear Luster Turner became “Ike,” etc. And up until the Revolutionary era, most Europeans were addressed by names reflecting their trade or town of origin rather than their baptismal name. So a certain fluidity in names is not specific to China.
More convincing is Huan Hsu’s explanation: English names simply are easier to write in a globalized world.
What’s in a name?
But beyond the practical need, isn’t that opportunity to choose also a chance to adopt a meaningful name? Names are not innocent: The Telegraph did an experiment, asking readers to write about their experience with their names. They claim to have received 15,000 such testimonies, allowing them “a fascinating insight into a hitherto hidden aspect of the human psyche.”
Complementing them with scientific research, Professor of Psychology Richard Wiseman from the University of Hertfordshire concluded that, as life advances, people realize having a family name starting with a letter that comes early in the alphabet gives advantages, and those whose initials spell silly words are discriminated against. A practical example: the American Journal of Roentgenology addressed the issue that reviewers had a much higher chance to be invited to contribute if their name ranked high in the alphabetical order. A sign of people’s attachment to their family name may have been proven by Belgian researchers who claim that people are drawn to places and employers that share the letters from their name. In short, these names we can’t choose end up playing a role in our lives.
Of course, then, Chinese-speakers would not choose their foreign name lightly. Justina Cheang, of the University of Macau, performed a study on how residents of the territory chose their English name (or other foreign name), asking a panel of people for their story. She concluded these choices were part of what she called a “strategy for identity management”: certain names are chosen to show a pleasant personality, or other desirable qualities that they wanted to project to others. Cheang says that we, consciously or not, “perform” in front of others in an attempt at controlling the image we give. She found that half of the respondents chose their foreign names and the other half received them without being asked their opinion (from parents or teachers), and that all but one person were happy with it.
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I did my own experiment too, and asked around for stories on how names were chosen.
A Taiwanese woman who goes by “Grace” told me, “It is a great quality for a woman.” She confirms Cheang’s study, however, saying that, “It was not my first English name, because at school, when you start English classes, the teacher will often choose a name for you. I did not like the name that teacher chose for me, so once an adult I took another one. But I know many of my classmates decided to keep the name the teacher gave them, mostly because they were used to it or already had a history with it.”
This was an interesting discovery: most Chinese-speakers changed their foreign names often. Another Taiwanese woman, who never lived overseas, told me: “I was first known as Mary because in Chinese it sounds like Ma-Li and that’s similar to my Chinese name: my English teacher chose it when I was ten, so I obeyed. I did not like it, so at university I changed it to Michelle, but there were three of them in my class. An English professor then suggested Cornelia, but everyone laughed as it sounded so old-fashioned. Then one day I visited a company and there was a little sign on a lady’s desk with her name. She was called Kris, and I found it was a great name; it also fascinated me because it was unisex. So I took this name too — I think it’s cool, unique, and somehow independent.” She praised its androgynous quality, in sharp contrast with her elegant and feminine allure, but it seems to be a trend in Taiwan: “I am noticing more girls with unisex names around now, such as Charlie, Jackie, Billie…,” she says.
Some change their name because they change foreign countries: I met a Taiwanese woman who first adopted “Jane” as a Western name but changed it to “Jeanne” when she married a Frenchman.
Names given to you, names you give to yourself
In her study in Macau, Cheang also quoted a similar experiment done in Hong Kong: “People feel it may sound too formal if they are addressed by their full Chinese name, yet they have a tendency to restrict being called only their Chinese first names as it may sound too intimate, which is normally restricted for the use in family. Western names serve the convenience of being in the middle — not too formal, not too intimate.”
A Hong-Konger explained her story: “My father did not speak English. When I was born, he asked the oracle to choose my Chinese name. While he was at it, he also asked the oracle for an English name, and he told my father that the translation of my Chinese name was ‘Henrietta’. I have no idea how he reached this conclusion, and I hated this name which I could not even pronounce. Then, at school, I had a great English teacher who lived a long time in the UK. He suggested Sheila, because that’s often used by British people to mean ‘a girl’. I liked that.”
Hong-Kongers seem the most daring when it comes to choosing a name: Sheila says one of her friends chose the name “Kinky”: “She had no idea what it means but she thought it sounded funny. I had to tell her to be careful introducing herself this way!”
Indeed, you never know what kind of connotation and baggage a name would carry in another culture. A Taiwanese teenager says her English name was first chosen by her parents: Jennifer. “Then we realized that, in every American show or movie, Jennifer was often a dumb girl, so they changed my name. But they opted for Karen, which in recent times also acquired a negative meaning.” I saw this happen with people taking a French nickname that sounds way more silly than they think. A lot of foreign women take the French moniker “Simone” as a reference to feminist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir. This backfires: in the Francosphere, she is mostly referred to as “de Beauvoir” alone, because “Simone” is such a tacky and extremely old-fashioned name that we associate with the stereotype of an old, unrefined woman — it sounds about as good as “Cornelia” or “Henrietta.”
What started as just a practicality, a way to spell your name easily on an HR form, has become a creative experience. Cheang noted “the ability to exercise self-control and self-decision in using names with a purpose linked with impression or the like, and if they feel the name is not good anymore in any way, they feel they can change it.” No surprise that all but one person she interrogated liked their name, whether they chose it or it was given to them: if one of them had been given an unsavory name, they would have already changed it at that stage.
“Western names serve the convenience of being in the middle — not too formal, not too intimate”
The only person who told Cheang she disliked her name did so because it was “not rare anymore” and thus “not special.” I found a good example of “image control” in a Chinese woman who chose the unusual first name “Jingle”: she told me, “My family name is Dong. Already in China they gave me the nickname ‘Ding Dong’, which is the sound of jingling bells. They did so because of my upbeat personality, and that when I arrive somewhere it feels like I ring ‘ding dong’! So I just translated it into ‘Jingle’.” She was adamant to have a name that betrays her personality.
I pretty much found any possible reason behind a name choice, ranging from creative and personal ideas to simple phonetic similarity: a Chinese man who has been living in Australia for decades is known there as “Simon,” and when I asked why, he had no fancy meaning to attach. “When I first arrived, they just called me like this because it’s the one that sounds the most like my Chinese name, and I rolled with it,” he says.
Still, collecting these testimonies (I have plenty more, ranging from people who named themselves after famous singers to others being named after an obscure historical figure that lived in the town where they moved) was a valuable journey into the mind of modern Chinese-speakers, and how they navigate keeping their cultural identity while embracing the globalized world. And perhaps this is a tradition we could establish: all of us given the choice to adopt a new name when navigating international channels. The Sinosphere does it with astonishing freedom. This may be a good lesson for anyone else who wonders how they are going to introduce themselves to the world.